


The Strangest Hollows

by Yrindor



Category: Bleach, Pokemon GO
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-01
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-08-18 20:02:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8174246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yrindor/pseuds/Yrindor
Summary: Ichigo was looking forward to finally having a day to himself; he planned to use it to treat himself to a day of Pokemon hunting.  Unfortunately, Renji and Rukia's sudden arrival does not bode well for that outcome.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Starrie_Wolf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starrie_Wolf/gifts).



> Written for Crossover 2016 for Starrie_Wolf. The fic takes place between the Soul Society and Hueco Mundo arcs.

"Oi, Ichigo!"

Ichigo looked up from his phone to see Renji hurrying down the street towards him.

"Renji! What're you doing here?" he said in surprise.

"It's a bit unexpected," Renji said, looking nervously around him even as he spoke. "There's been a bit of a, uh...situation in the Soul Society. Rukia and I need to consult with Urahara."

"Rukia's here?"

"She got delayed going through the Senkaimon, but she should be here soon."

As Renji spoke, Ichigo's phone buzzed in his hand, and he looked down at the screen.

"Again?" he muttered, "that's the tenth one today."

Still, he was out of stardust again, and he was still working on training his Rhydon, so he flicked a Pokeball at the Pidgey that had appeared in the middle of the street.

Renji looked over his shoulder to see what had distracted him, and his reaction was completely unexpected.

"Ichigo, look out!" Renji yelled, releasing his Zanpakuto and jumping out into the street. "Where is it!?"

"Where's what?"

"The mutant hollow!"

"The what?"

"The bird! Where is it?"

"You mean this?" Ichigo asked, holding out his phone screen for Renji.

Renji looked at the screen and back at the road. "Crap, they can go invisible too? Did Urahara modify that for you so you could see them?"

"Renji, it's a game," Ichigo said slowly. "They're not real."

Renji continued looking nervously around them. "Try telling that to Shuuhei. He's been in the Fourth Division since a flock of the monsters tried to peck out his eyes a couple of days ago."

"I don't think we're talking about the same thing, Renji," Ichigo said. "These don't exist outside of--"

"Renji! Ichigo!" Ichigo was interrupted by Rukia's shouted greeting as she ran down the street to meet them.

"Rukia! You made it!"

"No thanks to you," Rukia quipped. "What were you thinking abandoning me with those things?"

"I trusted you'd get away, and Yamato-taichou did say 'as quickly as possible.'"

"I think they're all frozen now. Hopefully they stay that way; this shihakusho is never going to be the same again," Rukia said, poking gingerly at the small holes that littered her uniform.

"At least you got off lightly. Could've been like Hisagi."

Rukia flinched. "Or Kira," she said quietly. "I just heard the beginning of it on my way out, but he's down too. Poison."

Renji swore.

"We need to find Ura-- Renji, watch out!" Rukia yelled as she released her shikai.

"Guys, what is going on?" Ichigo asked.

"Where is it? I just saw it. One of the birds was right between your feet."

"It's. A. Game." Ichigo repeated, turning off the screen on his phone. "See? Nothing there."

"If it's a game, it must be a twisted one designed by Katen Kyokotsu," Renji said somberly. "Those monsters have Soul Society in chaos right now. Half of the Tenth Division is sidelined with injuries currently along with smaller percentages of most other divisions. Shuuhei and Iba, and apparently now Kira too are in the Fourth with serious injuries, and Kuchiki-taichou would be if he weren't too stubborn to leave the Kuchiki manor. The Fourth Division is so overwhelmed right now they're talking about bringing in extra help from the Fifth or Thirteenth. That's not a game to me."

"I'm not sure I followed all of that, but this is a game," Ichigo, holding up his phone. "It's a new, hugely popular game, but it's just a game. It shouldn't have anything to do with the Soul Society at all."

"Clearly it does," Renji countered, "or we wouldn't be here."

"It's a bunch of pixels on my phone. Pokemon don't actually exist."

"They do in the Soul Society, at least as of about a week ago."

"Guys," Rukia cut in, "I think we should go find Urahara. Bickering isn't going to get us anywhere. Ichigo, I think you should come to since you seem to know what these creatures are."

"Fine, I'll come," Ichigo grumbled. "Though at this rate I'm never going to hatch this egg."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"So what exactly is the situation right now?" Urahara asked once they were all sitting around the table in his shop. "Ukitake tried to give me an overview, but he was cut off."

"Several days ago, weird creatures started appearing around the Soul Society in large numbers," Rukia began. "At first we thought they were a new type of Hollow, but we haven't been able to find the characteristic Hollow holes on any of them. Mayuri has been working on the problem nonstop since it began, and he says if anything, the creatures seem to have more in common with souls arriving to the Soul Society than they do with Hollows.

"Which wouldn't be an issue if they were innocuous, or at least not as much of an issue, but they aren't. Some of them are worse than others, but almost all of them have attacked shinigami at some point. We've been too occupied just trying to keep things under control within Seireitei to venture farther out into the rest of the Soul Society, but from the few reports we're getting, the creatures are out there, but in smaller numbers.

"Ukitake sent us here on Yamato's orders in hopes that you'd be able to help us identify the problem and offer suggestions on a possible solution. By themselves, each creature isn't much of a threat, but they tend to gang up on shinigami, and some of them appear to have nasty poisons as well."

"Can you describe the creatures a bit more?" Urahara asked.

"They're all sorts of things," Renji said. "Mainly we're being overrun by sparrows, and caterpillars, and rats, but there's pretty much everything else you can imagine as well. Yesterday Nanao found what appeared to be a sentient pink bouncy ball drawing all over Shunsui's face while he was sleeping. We all had a good laugh at that, but most of them aren't so innocuous as that. Hisagi was mobbed a couple of days back by a flock of sparrows that went for his eyes. Unohana was able to save them, but he's going to be out of commission for the foreseeable future. Yesterday, Byakuya was ambushed by a _plant_ that released some sort of spore that slipped through Senbonzakura's defense, and then started draining his reiatsu while he was incapacitated. Luckily Yachiru found him in time, but he's still recovering, and no one wants to think about what could've happened if Yachiru hadn't been there.

"I could keep going, but I think you get the picture; about 10% of the shinigami are currently on the casualty list, including lieutenant and captain-level shinigami."

"Hmm, so you're asking me to help figure out what these not-Hollows are and how to defeat them? I can't say I've ever heard of anything like this before..."

"They're Pokemon," Ichigo interrupted.

"They're what?"

"They're Pokemon," Ichigo repeated. "They're from a kids game. At least, they are if Renji and Rukia's reaction to the Pidgey I was trying to catch is accurate."

"Can you show them a few other examples, Kurosaki-san?"

"Sure, can't hurt," Ichigo said as he opened his Pokedex. "Here, do either of these look like your rats?" he asked, pointing to Rattata and Ratticate.

"Yeah, that's definitely the one, and that's the one that attacked Shuuhei," Renji said, pointing at Spearow.

"Well this is interesting," Urahara announced as he clapped his hands. "It sounds like we have fictional creatures from a Human World game invading the Soul Society in very real forms. When did you say the problem began?"

"Six days ago. It was bad the first day, and it's only gotten worse since; they've turned into a veritable flood."

Urahara rested his chin in his hands while he thought. "Kurosaki-san," he asked, "when did your new game come out."

Ichigo shrugged. "About a week ago. I don't remember exact-- Oh." Everyone in the room held their breath as he checked his profile. "Six days ago."

"There's the first part of our answer then," Urahara said. "Kurosaki-san, since you seem to know these creatures, I propose that you return to the Soul Society with Renji and do what you can to help them set up a more effective defense.

"Rukia, Ukitake's not on the casualty list, is he?"

"Not as of when we left. He and Kyouraku-taichou have been digging through the Archives looking for anything that could help us."

"In that case, I'd like you to stay here and help me set up a connection with your captain and Shunsui. We'll focus on finding the root of the problem, and hopefully that will lead us to a solution.

"If there aren't any objections, I'll set up the return Senkaimon now. It sounds like time is of the essence."

"Yeah," Renji agreed. "Let's go, Ichigo. You'd better know what you're doing."

Despite the complexity of the task, it took Urahara and Tessai mere minutes to set up in the cavern beneath the shop.

"Stay safe, both of you," Rukia said as the gate flickered to life.

"You're going to want to have your sword out," Renji warned Ichigo as they stepped through the gate. "I have no idea what we're going to find on the other side, but it was chaos when we left."

They sounds of battle reached them well before they made it through the gates into the Soul Society. As soon as he stepped out into the center of the Seireitei, Ichigo looked at the situation around him and concluded that Renji's "chaos" was an accurate description. To his right, Yumichika was trying to fend off several Geodude with his peacock blades. To his right, Ikkaku's massive dragon blade was being assaulted by an angry Cloyster. In front of him, a group of unseated Tenth Division shinigami were struggling to hold back a crowd of Drowzee.

At least part of the problem had an easy fix, Ichigo thought. "Renji, go help Yumichika," he ordered as he activated his bankai. "I'm going to help the Tenth, and then we'll all help out Ikkaku if he still needs it."

He didn't look back as he jumped into battle, the black flames of his bankai easily defeating Drowzee after Drowzee. From time to time, he caught sight of Renji out of the corner of his eye. Much to Yumichika's rather vocal displeasure, Renji's sword was easily smashing the Geodude that had been nearly unscathed by Yumichika's own shikai. It didn't take long before they defeated all of the Pokemon around them.

"Renji, I need all the shinigami you can find here now," Ichigo ordered in the sudden lull, "and I'll need a few large sheets of paper."

"Yumichika, get the paper," Renji instructed. "Everyone else, round up whoever you can find and get them back here. You have fifteen minutes. Whatever this is, it'd better be good, Ichigo."

Ichigo didn't bother with a reply before Renji left. As soon as Yumichika came back with ink and several large sheets of calligraphy paper, Ichigo began drawing the diagram of different Pokemon types and their strengths and weaknesses.

By the time he finished, the courtyard was filled with shinigami. He was just about to begin speaking when a Hell Butterfly flew overhead.

"Attention all shinigami," Ukitake's voice announced. "This is an important update regarding the ongoing invasion of the Seireitei. I repeat, this is an important announcement for all shinigami. Urahara of Karakura town has identified the source of the problem. A popular new Human World game includes the ability to transfer monsters out of one's account in the game. As originally written, that activity should have deleted the monster; however, a malicious change was made to the code that causes the transfer to instead force the monster to appear within the Seireitei. The exact source of the change has not yet been identified; however, we have been able to trace it back to Hueco Mundo."

Ukitake's voice paused at that point, and a murmur ran through the gathered shinigami.

"You've probably come to the same conclusions we have," the announcement continued. "We have no proof, but we strongly suspect Aizen was behind this change. We're currently operating under the assumption that his plan is to weaken our forces with these monsters before launching a definitive attack from Hueco Mundo himself. Urahara is working as quickly as possible to fix the modification causing this invasion, but until then, please be alert for any signs of movement from Hueco Mundo, and report any concerns immediately. Further updates we be made as soon as they are available. Message over."

"Listen up, everyone," Ichigo called as soon as the announcement ended. "It sounds like we could be fighting these things for awhile longer, but I want to give you some tricks that will make them easier to defeat. The single most important thing you need to to know is that every one of these monsters has a type, and its type determines its strengths and weaknesses. As many of you have probably noticed, trying to fight something you have a disadvantage against is far more difficult than you'd expect, so it's better to avoid doing so if you can.

"I've written out here a diagram listing the different types and their strengths and weaknesses. I also wrote out a list of all of the monsters and the their types. We'll make sure every Division has their own copy of both by the end of the day. These monsters seem to be trying to attack shinigami whose preferred attacks will be at a disadvantage, so try to fight in groups whenever possible, and take the initiative to fight where you'll be strongest.

"Until Urahara comes through with a permanent solution, get back out there, and let's make sure we don't give Aizen a second chance to strike."

A shout of agreement rose from the shinigami as they split away to continue fighting. For the rest of the night, battles sprang up across the Seireitei, but the tide had turned, and the casualties among the shinigami dropped dramatically. Ichigo, Renji, and the other captains and lieutenants who were still able to fight floated wherever they were needed, providing the extra push needed whenever a group looked to be in trouble.

Come morning, everyone was starting to reach their limits, and Ichigo had never been so glad to see a Hell Butterfly before.

"This is an official update to the current situation," Urahara's voice announced. "We managed to deconstruct the malicious code and write a fix for it. We just forced that update out to all devices that had installed the game. That won't address the monsters currently in the Seireitei, but no new ones should spawn from this point forward. We also sent a message back to the creator of the initial modification that should make it clear that we have fixed the bug and know who was responsible. Given what we know of Aizen's usual modus operandi, we feel it is highly unlikely he will move at this point now that he's lost both his smokescreen and the element of surprise. Clear out the last of the remaining monsters, and this situation will be declared as successfully resolved."

A cheer rose from across Seireitei as Urahara's voice faded, and Ichigo found himself joining in as well. He had been involved for less than a day, but it was more than long enough to feel a strong sense of relief that things were liable to get better and not worse.

His relief was marred somewhat when he crossed back through the Senkaimon into Urahara's basement later that afternoon and Urahara gave him the twisted remains of what once had been his phone, but even that, he decided, was a small price to pay if it meant not having to face Aizen head-on just then.


End file.
